Friday, December 16, 2011

We wanted to release some special, exclusive merch for LPU members this year, so we decided to reach back into the LP vault and reproduce one of Linkin Park's early tees from the Hybrid Theory era. The "LP Symbols" tee is now available exclusively for LPU members on the same super soft t-shirts all of the new official Linkin Park and LPU merch is printed on. The shirts will start shipping at the beginning of February, but quantities are extremely limited, so order now. Each order comes with a pack of archived early Linkin Park stickers.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

LPU11 has
officially launched! This new year of the LPU launches with a brand new
members-only online community, an exclusive merchandise package and
additional benefits, including LPU members' request for early admission
into Linkin Park shows.

We are also releasing our annual LPU
CD. The LPU11 CD is filled with unreleased demos from Hybrid Theory to A
Thousand Suns. Some of the songs on this CD are early versions of
familiar songs, such as the “In The End” demo. Other songs on this CD
never made it on a Linkin Park album and remained unfinished and in raw
form. All of the songs represent the journey it takes to create an album
as a whole, and we're excited to share them with you.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Linkin Park
have won the coveted title of Best Rock at the 2011 MTV EMA, beating
off stiff competition from the likes of the Foo Fighters and Kings Of Leon
Accepting the award via video link, the group's Mike Shinoda thanked the fans for all their support.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Mike Shinoda recently attended the Billboard Film & TV Conference
that ran from 24-25 October in Los Angeles, CA to discuss his ongoing
work on the soundtrack for the movie he's scoring - The Raid. During the
event Mike took part in interviews and panels to shed some light on the
project which you can check out below.

Video Q&A with Mike Shinoda on Scoring The Raid:

Linkin Park songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and rapper, Mike Shinoda
sat down with Billboard senior correspondent Phil Gallo at the Billboard and Hollywood Reporter Film & TV Music Conference
to answer questions about his experiences in creating music with his
band versus composing music for films. The trained-musician is currently
writing and recording music for his first feature film "The Raid,"
directed by Gareth Evan and slated for an early-2012 release.

In the video below Shinoda explains why he chose to work with Joe
Trapanese (he worked on the "Tron: Legacy" score with Daft Punk); how
art school critiques helped him with the collaborative process (and
helped him to lose his ego); and how studying piano since the age of
three has come to help in scoring films.

Examiner.com
have an article describing the Out of the Band and Onto the Screen
panel which Mike was involved with alongside Robert Kraft, Curt Smith,
Cliff Martinez, Peter Himmelman and Joe Trapanese who is co-composing
The Raid with Mike. Read an excerpt, check out the full article and
watch some video of the panel below.

"...Another question had to do with the editing process: How do you
decide which pieces to keep and which ones to cut? Mike Shinoda
answered that question with an anecdote from when he was in school at
the Art Center in Pasadena. He stated, “Our experience at the school
was we would go in with say a painting and the class which was about
thirty of us would each put our pieces up on the board and basically
tell each other why our paintings were horrible for hours and over the
course of years of doing that you get good at it. You get really good
at being able to take criticism and give criticism and leaving your ego
at the door and being productive. If you’re working with people who
are just not interested I guess it’s a much bigger issue but as long as
you’re all on the same team you can have those kinds of conversations
where you can say to somebody ‘look, I’m going to let these other
things go—I really believe in this one’ then people will be a little
more receptive” to which Robert Kraft replied, “you have a big future
as a film composer with that attitude because that is the essence of
it.” Mike responded, “that’s how our band works. We’ve got six guys
doing that. Every Monday we get together with our records. That’s the
reason why it takes us over a year to make a record is that we’re
killing ideas one right after the other and building up new ones… even
one guy in our group doesn’t like it for some reason or another we’re
going to get in there and figure out what is it about it that he’s not
into and we’re going to respect that even if he cant write the piece
that we’re talking about—even if he cant write the vocal or he cant
write whatever his opinion is potentially one sixth of our fan base so
we’re going to respect that and try and make it work.”

Saturday, October 22, 2011

The score for The Raid
is steadily moving along. In between Linkin Park studio sessions–which
are also underway–I’m working on the feature-length score for this
brutal Indonesian action movie. With a good chunk of the movie now
sounding good, and a lot of great hype and reviews coming from folks who
have gotten a chance to see the film, I’m excited to tell you a little
more about it.
Writing big, nasty parts for a fast-paced action scene have come
pretty naturally for me. There are lots of moments with big beats and
unique, exciting sounds. But one thing I’ve found that’s different in
writing for film (versus an album) is being aware of how and when to
make the music transparent. The music needs to be invisible at times.
Writing a Linkin Park song is usually about our personal stories, not
someone else’s. And an LP song is designed to draw you in, to catch
your ear with words, melodies, and sounds. Often, the techniques I
might use to create a catchy sound or “hook” would actually take away
from a scene in The Raid, so it’s been a fun challenge to learn when and
how to let the movie’s story come first.
I also enlisted the help of Joe Trapanese, best know for his work
with Daft Punk on the TRON score and soundtrack. Joe also did strings
on the newest M83 album, “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.” Joe comes from a
composing / arranging / film background, and we’re finding great ways to
inform and compliment one anothers’ work in the music for this movie.
Here’s a cool (fan-made?) video for Joe’s favorite track he worked on, from M83′s new album, a song called “Wait”